Wimbledon: It Feels Like Modesto

Man, it’s hot outside. I can’t believe this is Wimbledon. There’s no tennis today — the tournament traditionally goes dark on the middle Sunday — and it feels like a really steamy day in the California valley.

The forecast looks only marginally worse for tomorrow, when all of the 32 surviving players see action in the fourth round. A few notes along the way:

— The Andy Murray-Richard Gasquet match calls up the most significant day in the young Scot’s career. It was the fourth round of the 2008 tournament and Murray, while highly promising, was still something of a mystery when it came to his Wimbledon potential. He quickly fell two sets down to Gasquet, the Frenchman with the exquisite one-hand backhand, and all seemed lost before a disillusioned Centre Court crowd.

Murray wound up winning that match, the first time he’d come back from such a deficit, and in the frenzy of the crowd’s response, he ripped back his shirtsleeve to reveal a chiseled right bicep. “He ended up standing on the lip of the photographers’ pit, with the eyes popping out of his skull and his neck veins engorged,” wrote Mark Hodgkinson in the Telegraph. “For a second, it seemed he was about to perform a rock star’s stage-dive into the front row.”

Murray still hasn’t won Wimbledon, but he showed his mettle that day. “I’m sure Gasquet will not forgotten what happened,” Murray said on Saturday, nor will Gasquet be able to ignore the fact that he had a two-sets-to-none lead on Murray at last year’s French Open and lost that one, as well.

(“Two sets down” seems to be a recurring theme with Gasquet. In the 2007 Wimbledon quarterfinals against Andy Roddick, he was the one who emerged from the depths — a loss that took Roddick months to get over.)

— Murray has had quite enough of the publicity surrounding his mother, Judy, of late, but she brings it on herself. Absolutely enchanted with the dashing Spaniard, Felciano Lopez, she has referred to him as “Deliciano” on her Twitter account.

— Novak Djokovic was the picture of confidence and all-court genius during his winning streak (41 straight to open the year and 43 overall). He seemed a bit deflated during his French Open loss to Roger Federer, and he was decidedly tight and tentative in the final stages of his victory over Marcos Baghdatis on Saturday. Credit Djokovic for pulling out that match against a guy who was playing out of his mind, but there were signs of the old, more temperamental Djokovic. At one stage of the second set, he smashed his racket three times, shattering the frame.

“Yes, I admit I lost my cool,” said Djokovic, who earned a racket-abuse warning for the incident. “I wasn’t playing to my level, and it was just frustrating. I know it doesn’t look great, but it helps.”

— What does a top player do after being eliminated from a major? Disappear, most likely, unless he or she is still in the doubles. Roddick says he can’t watch tennis in a tournament he’s no longer in, preferring to “go out and work on making myself better.” Caroline Wozniacki, who plays Dominika Cibulkova in the fourth round tomorrow, said she took a “mental break” after losing to Daniela Hantuchova in the third round of the French Open. “When I was home (in Monaco), there was no tennis on TV,” she said. “Even when my brother came to visit, and he and my parents wanted to watch tennis. Every time they turned it on, I went to another room.”

— Yes, that’s NBA sharpshooter Sasha Vujacic, Maria Sharapova‘s fiancee, in her box for every match. He found it difficult to travel with her when he was with the Lakers, with their deep playoff runs, but he’s with New Jersey now. Plenty of time to be Mr. Sharapova. He was known as something of a wack job with the Lakers — coach Phil Jackson once wondered if he “has a brain” — but he’s a very cool presence around Maria’s matches, solid but not overbearing.

— Here’s a switch: Marion Bartoli became so upset with herself Saturday during a third-round match against Flavia Pennetta, he ordered her parents to leave. She was somewhat evasive about it later, but there’s no doubt she kicked them out of the stands.

“I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I think it was really clear,” she said later after a desperately hard-fought win (9-7 in the third). “I just had to let go my frustrations and express myself in some way. I saw them right after the match, and they understood completely. It was not against them. I was just exhausted and tired and I needed to do something to get that frustration out.”